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Our Lady of the Angels (OLA) School Fire, December 1, 1958
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Personal Experiences with Our Lady of the Angels School Fire

If you have a personal experience, recollection or opinion about the December 1, 1958 Our Lady of the Angels school fire, whether you were present at the fire or not, you can relate it here. Any story or information is welcome as long as it relates to Our Lady of the Angels school fire.
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Posted by: Jim Campbell On: 7/5/2006 ID: 279
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No Before Dwight, IL
On that day, I was in the 5th grade (I believe) at St. Paul's Catholic Grade School in Odell, Illinois. The local parrish priest, Fr. Garahan, came into our classroom early the next morning to talk to us about the tragedy - which most of us already knew about from radio and TV news accounts. Ours was a fairly new school then, with alarms and adequate ways to escape if need be, although we did not have sprinkler systems (added later). He told us to pray for the victims, and that fire drills would be increased. It was difficult for us to grasp, the scale of the tragedy, that is.

A few days later, Fr. Garahan and other priests from the Diocese Of Peoria got a chance to tour the burned-out school. He came back saddened and sickened by what he saw, including opened books still on desks in one of the rooms. I seem to remember that his group also visited some of the victims still in a hospital. Once again, he urged us to remember all these innocent children in our prayers.

This tragedy is one of the childhood memories that is still strong for me today. Why, I do not know. I have never been in a fire, nor has any member of my family. I have seen burn victims in Vietnam, and even then reflected on how horribly some of these children died that day in 1958. I don't pray anymore, the world has driven it out of me, but the memory of this event is still strong. I believe modern safety systems save more victims than prayer ever could.


Posted by: Woody On: 6/30/2006 ID: 278
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No After n/a
A fine site. I sure hope this never happens again. I was shocked to read about this tragedy. The To Sleep With The Angels book made a very interesting read. I knew a kid in grade school who was seriously burned when he was the same age as many kids in the OLA fire.


Posted by: Margaret Hill (nee Daum) On: 6/17/2006 ID: 277
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No Before 5730 West Huron - St. Lucy's Parish
Our Lady of the Angels was two and one half miles from our home on Huron Street. I was four years old at the time of the fire. However, my earliest memory of the fire was a few months later on Ash Wednesday. I went with my mother, aunt, uncle and grandmother for ashes at St. Angela Catholic church. I was afraid to go in for ashes (I thought the ashes would burn a hole in my forehead.), so I waited in the car with my mother and uncle. My aunt and grandmother went into the church for ashes while we waited in the car. After several minutes they came back out talking in hushed tones about the Lady of Angels fire. It seemed there were a few families from OLA that had moved to my grandmother's parish. While my mother and uncle went in for ashes, I asked my aunt about the fire. She said that many children had died in the fire and they were now special little angels in heaven. A few years later I started attending the school at St. Lucy's Parish on Lake Street. From the very first week, I remember marching in and out of school to music. We had the Sisters of Mercy order at our school. A nun would operate the record player on the second floor by the stairs. We also started doing fire drills regularly. I must have complained to my mother about all the fire drills. Mom was a little upset with me. Then she told me all about the tragic fire and how the nuns had rolled students down the stairs to get them out. Because of this tragedy, Mayor Dailey ordered that all schools in Chicago be fitted with sprinkler systems and fire alarms. Mom also said St. Lucy's was an almost exact replica of Our Lady of Angels School. It was built around the same time too. The OLA fire has left a lifelong impression on me and I never again complained about fire drills.Some months ago I found this website and started reading the stories and looking at the pictures of the children who died. The children looked just like the classmates I had at St. Lucy’s so many years ago. Sweet innocent children. Each with a loving family just like I had. We moved to the suburbs in 1964. Even though it has been many years, I shall always remember our little house on Huron, the lovely scent of the lilac trees in the front yard, walking to St. Lucy’s for mass on Sundays, swimming at the indoor pool in the Austin Town Hall, summer days at the Crystal pool (formerly the Mud hole as my mother knew it when she was a girl) on Lake and Austin, Stevenson Park, the 10 cent cokes at the grocery on Lake and Waller, the Chateau Livery on Parkside where my brother Mike and I would sneak a drink of water at the water cooler and the beautiful Austin Library I spent so many hours at with my siblings. Some of these places no longer exist, but I still hold dear the memories of our close knit neighborhood. A neighborhood not unlike the one around Our Lady of Angels. God Bless.


Posted by: Barbara L. On: 6/8/2006 ID: 276
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No Before Brighton Park
I was six years old at the time of the fire. My brother, 9 years older than I am, was a student at Gage Park High School. I don't think I really understood what had happened but I know that it had a big impact on him. A bigger impact on me came after the fire and it's seems so unimportant now as the true impact of the horror of that day is clearer to me as an adult years later.

My Mother passed away several weeks after my birth. She had been in poor health for most of life, had been stricken with polio as well as a heart problem. My birth was too much for her to come back from. When she was stricken with polio, one of the agencies that provided assistance to her family during those years, gave her a doll. She was 'too old' to play with it, she thought, so she saved it. She was saving it to give to the daughter she would have someday.

The doll remained, high up on a closet shelf, wrapped in paper and rags. Sometimes I would beg and beg until someone hauled it down so I could peek at it but I was thought to be to young to be given it. At some point in the year after the fire, I went to the closet and noticed that there was only an empty space where the doll should have been. I must have immediately created a fuss because everyone was looking for the doll. Later, when my brother returned home, he admitted that he had taken the doll when his school was collecting toys for the survivors of the Our Lady of the Angels fire and donated it.

For most of my adult life, I found myself purchasing dolls that I 'had' to have and then never getting much enjoyment from them. I always needed a different one or another one. It finally, after many years, occurred to me that I was probably looking for the one doll I couldn't remember and would never have.

I truly hope that my brother's gift brought pleasure to some young survivor of the fire. I worry because the doll was probably percieved as 'old' at the time but I hope it was kept and that my Mother's treasure lives on although she did not. My heart breaks when I read the stories of the fire and to all of the survivors and the families of those that perished, you are in my prayers.


Posted by: Zenobia L Carson On: 6/8/2006 ID: 275
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No Before 4343 West 15th Street
I was eleven years old and attended Roswell B Mason Elementary school. I remember hearing my parents mentioning it and I didnt quite know what was happening. The next day, the local newspaper ( I cannot remember which as my dad subscribed to both the Chicago Tribune and either the Chicago Herald American or the Chicago Sun-Times. In any case, there were full page photos and I remember feeling waves of horror rush over me and after that, such a sadness that I could not sleep well. I could not imagine that boys and girls could be killed this way and I was afraid each and every time I heard the school fire alarm go off.
I live now in Minnesota, but I want you all to know that I never forgot.
God bless and keep all of those who went through this horrific incident.

Zee Carson


Posted by: Eugene On: 6/2/2006 ID: 274
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No After n/a
OK, I was actually born on the day of the fire so I don't have direct memories expect that my extended families thought it was so great that someone was born (brought happyness) on a terrible day of Chicago history. I was reminded about the fire for most of my life and the only other interesting thing about this is while I'm not greek, my name is a greek work for well born. I was named after the Pope Pachelli at hat that time but it was an interesting coincidence nevertheless. My favorite line from my great great Aunt Francis Dirksen was "one is born on the day that many have died". Pacem Vobiscum


Posted by: DEH On: 5/26/2006 ID: 273
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No Before Mundelein
I remember the day but not the day of the week. It was winter. Less than three weeks away from the shortest day. We had moved the past summer to a farming community 40 miles north of Chicago. My father rode the Milwaukee Road Railroad to and from Chicago each day. At age 13, I was angry that we had moved away from Logan Square and all my friends. Starting 7th grade in a new school was difficult, and no one lived nearby. It is easy to be angry with your parents at 13 but difficult to express the anger. Al least it was in 1958. It was easier to vilify them—make them a different species—impossible to deal with. So it was with me and my father. As I began my emancipation he resisted and we became more estranged. He was incapable of feeling. I was sure of it.

We heard about the OLA fire when we came home from school. It was not until 6 that evening when my father walked in the door. It was dark already. We were fairly isolated. There were no lights from other houses visible from our windows. The night had never seemed scary before but this night it felt evil. I was glad my father was home.

He kissed mother in the kitchen and then went to his bedroom. I followed him in. He was standing with his back to me but I could tell by his hand movements he was taking off his cufflinks and placing them on top of his dresser. I asked, did you hear about the fire? That’s when he turned and looked down at me and began to cry. He sat down on a chair next to his dresser and wept. His chest heaved up and down—he could no longer hold his pain. I walked closer and he reached out and held me close for a few moments. Did you know someone in the fire, I asked. All those children, all those children, was all he could say.

My father and I continued to have rough times, only reconciling when I was older. But I never thought of him in the same way after that night in his bedroom. I’m embarrassed to say at the time I didn’t understand why he would cry over the loss of children he had never met. Now I am 60. I have four children. I understand why he would cry because it is all I can do when I think upon the children.


Posted by: Missy On: 5/24/2006 ID: 272
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No Before Gladys and Cicero, same year moved to HOC parish.
Was in 4th grade at Resurrection. Home alone sick from school that day and saw it on the news. Family members out of state kept calling all evening because they all knew we were in Catholic school in Chicago. It took that fire to get Res school to put in fire doors in the stairwells and sprinklers. ALL our schools in the archdiocese were fire traps until then. Putting safety measures in the parish schools was the one good thing that came out of that horror. Read TO SLEEP WITH THE ANGELS a few years back. It's a powerful account of that story. I agree with the authors that church authorities at that time knew who did it and just swept it under the rug to avoid a scandal. No telling what else was under that rug.


Posted by: Linda On: 5/15/2006 ID: 271
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No Before Our Lady Help of Christians Parish
I was 11 years old at the time of the fire. I remember that on that day I had to stay after school for talking. My room was on the top floor of HOC. When I looked out the back window you could see the heavy smoke even though we were a couple of miles away. At the time, I didnt know it was the school. When I got home, my father was at the kitchen table crying. He had stopped at a store on his way home from work and someone had told him there was a school on fire and that kids were jumping out the windows. The man said it was Our Lady of something on Iowa street. Our Lady Help of Christians was on Leamington and Iowa. He had to take the bus all the way home thinking his kids were trapped in the school. I had never seen my father cry. I lived between the fire station, OLA and St. Annes Hospital. All night long all you heard was sirens. I dont know why but my parents took us over a few days later to see the remains. OLA looked so much like our school. Books and shoes were all on the ground. When my children were in school if I heard a siren, it would freak me out even after all these years. It taught me never to take my children for granted just because God gave them to me. And to this day they never walk out of the house without my telling I love them. I know we are not supposed to question God but I dont think anyone who lived through that time hasnt asked WHY. God bless all the little angels and the nuns who lost their lives trying to protect them. But most of all, bless the families who have had to experience horror none of us will ever be able to comprehend.


Posted by: Jeanne (Gillespie) Schofield On: 5/3/2006 ID: 270
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No Before Not sure on that date but later Gladys/Cicero
My uncle George O'Connor was in room 209 in the fire. He survived and jumped out a window. He never talked much about the fire except saying there was a lot of screaming. I went to Resurection and remember the fire drills there. The nuns would always tell us to pray for the children who died. I never understood the extent of all this time I started researching the fire. It's sad that it takes a tragedy to improve things.